


shooting down the sun

by subwaywalls



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dreamons, Gen, Minecraft-Typical Violence, Temporary Character Death, death & respawning mechanics are a thing, resolving miscommunication mostly, yes you read that right. a happy ending! surprise!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27911197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subwaywalls/pseuds/subwaywalls
Summary: Hope in the dark is the sound of netherite boots shattering.(Or: Everyone teams up against Dream.)
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 269





	shooting down the sun

Hope in the dark is the sound of netherite boots shattering.

The shards splinter over the battlefield, blooded and dulling as the glow of enchantment fades. They’re quickly trampled into the earth as the joint forces advance again, whooping in renewed vigor.

Dream, bootless, bares his teeth at them. He’s panting and injured, resources nearly depleted; they’ve already snapped his crossbow in half, cut the strings on his bows, waited out his potions, reduced his shield to nothing but stray planks laying on the floor, and—just now—proven that even his self-mending netherite cannot last forever. 

The only thing he has left is three quarters of his armor, his dark silver axe, and what must be his own divinity howling up a storm in his veins.

If George’s heart cracks apart at the sight of him like this—alone, unyielding but losing ground, too far gone to recognize the faces rushing at him—nobody has to know. He simply lifts his axe and charges with the rest, praying that nobody has the time to look too closely at him and the stinging at the corner of his eyes. 

Tommy of course is at the front, slamming his sword against Dream’s axe like he’s trying to break at least one of the two weapons but doesn’t care which. Behind him, Eret snatches up all of Fundy’s fallen items and fires a crossbow bolt into Dream’s mask (it bounces off, of course) before rushing away to where the newly respawned Fundy is raring to go again.

They’re going to have to be more careful with deaths now, to stop Dream from picking up any stray sets of armor to replace his own with. It’s easier, with this many people around, with the whole population of the server united against one singular entity.

Dream cracks his axe into Tommy’s side, netherite grinding against netherite, and whips around just in time to see Techno just appear behind him. A squealing endermite gets trampled underfoot before Techno jams his crossbow directly up against where Dream’s jaw meets his neck.

Tommy has a split instant to throw himself back as Dream _laughs_ before Techno pulls the trigger, and a brilliant flash of blue-red light and fire and gunpowder smoke fills the air.

The wind shifts, clearing away the visual obstruction in a blink of an eye, and Dream looks scorched and somewhat dazed but still standing. Niki darts in, Puffy at her heels, and they turn Dream’s attention away from Techno as he reloads the crossbow and swaps it out for an axe of his own.

“Techno!” Tommy shouts, diving back in with Tubbo and Ranboo hot on his heels, “you almost hit _me_ with that!”

“Wups,” says Techno, completely deadpan, and takes another swing that drives Dream’s heels into the dirt as it shoves him back.

George rather thinks it’s Tommy’s fault for not getting out of the well-known hurricane of battleblood that is Technoblade, but doesn’t bother wasting breath on banter. He meets Sapnap’s eyes, nods, and the two move in together.

They know Dream’s fighting style better than anyone, and that familiarity is what lets Sapnap step under Dream’s guard when most of the others get rebuffed with an axe swing and an intimidating snarl. A pace away, George draws the string back on his bow, and he fires an arrow at the cracked porcelain mask with enough force to knock his head back and chip off another piece. The blow unbalances Dream for long enough that Sapnap locks his axe with Dream’s and twists it around, trying to disarm him. 

Unfortunately, Dream is familiar with their fighting styles, too. 

He lets go of the axe abruptly, making Sapnap overcompensate, only to kick it back up with his foot and grab out of the air with his other hand. His next swing lands cleaves into the back of Sapnap’s neck, between his chestplate and helmet, and Sapnap makes a choked sound before collapsing.

George is moving before he even registers it, shoving his shield up in Dream’s face and bodily forcing him back before turning to Sapnap (who only has two finals left, and if Dream pushed the damage far enough, he could’ve lost another). Having his back to Dream feels like a mistake, feels like death is looming overhead, but he catches sight of Niki with a determined expression and leaves it to her. All of George’s attention goes towards rapidly patting through his inventory, frantically searching for a healing pot, or regen, or anything that they haven’t already used up.

He’s stopped by Sapnap’s hand on his. “Not a final death,” Sapnap more mouths than whispers, blood staining his teeth. “Sprained wrist would—it would’ve been a pain anyway. Just… just pick up my stuff, a’ight? Don’t let him take it.”

George doesn’t get any further than a nod before Sapnap disintegrates, sent back to respawn at their most recent hidden bed. The ground is so wet with blood that when he gets up his leggings are more red-brown than purple-grey, but he doesn’t bother to brush them off. 

He grabs all of Sapnap’s fallen armor and supplies before Dream can shake off Puffy and Niki’s pincer attack, and retreats to a distance again with another arrow in his bow. It won’t do much, he knows, but having too many melee fighters means everyone just gets in each other’s way, and he’s better at a distance anyway.

It’s a shame they ran out of Harming-tipped arrows so quickly.

His next arrow cracks off of Dream’s helmet, but there are several spiderwebbing cracks all over it now, and George quickly readies another.

He needn’t have bothered; Tommy drops out of nowhere and smashes the helmet with his sword, though the resulting pulse of magic makes the blade miss Dream’s head. 

Still, it’s a step in the right direction, and everyone circles a little closer. There’s blood in the water now, and sure, most of it is from their own pack of sharks, but some of it—a precious little, a tiny glimmer of vulnerability—comes from their cornered prey. 

In the melee, Tubbo yelps as Dream’s axe comes damned close to splitting him in two. Tommy jerks towards him, but he’s already regained his footing and swinging for Dream’s unprotected head.

Dream moves to the side like quicksilver but still scratches his cheek on the very tip of the sword, and looks murderous for it. He knocks Tubbo’s legs out from under him, spinning to cleave his axe into Eret. They go sprawling, and the site of them bleeding out on the ground sends Puffy right at Dream’s face, a furious crease to her brow as she takes her sword and goes for his neck—

A bright rush of golden light makes everyone turn their eyes away, and when George looks over again, spots dancing across his vision, he sees an enchanted golden apple crumble to dust in Dream’s hands and an angry red scar on his neck. 

Puffy swears, but Technoblade yells, “Incoming!”, and George sees him and Wilbur and Philza with crossbows pointed at Dream. The paper outlines of the fireworks loaded there are obvious to see, and drives everyone to quickly back away, except Dream chases after Tommy and their aim follows him.

Several rockets go whistling through the air for a split second before exploding against Dream, loud and colorful and searing flesh and retinas alike. Barely a beat pauses before another slew of fireworks slam into him, and another, and at some point Tommy dies but he goes down cheering them on, and he’d managed to put enough pace between him and Dream that Sam can dart in and pick up everything and hurl several packs of TNT at Dream, too.

Dream still manages to hit him before the fireworks hit and detonate the TNT, but Sam nonetheless escapes over in George’s direction with a strained rasp to his breathing.

“That’s all I got on me,” he wheezes as he stumbles past, patting George’s shoulder. Without his turtle potions—divided up and used earlier, _gods_ has this fight been going on for forever—he’s clearly feeling his injuries a little more than usual, and George gives him a consoling nod of thanks.

The explosions go on for what seem like forever, but can’t be more than five seconds.

When the firework launchers finally pause, squinting into the thick cloud of debris and smog, the wind picks up around them. George registers Dream’s silhouette first, and then his chuckle of amusement, and then the fact that the howling gales have purposefully torn the smoke away and brought in heavy clouds overhead.

“Oh, yeah, change the weather for no reason and just let us hit you with some Channeling,” Sam grumbles, a little further away.

“It’s not a thunderstorm,” Tubbo says from off to the side, wiping blood from his face. “Unfortunately.”

Sapnap starts shouting all of the sudden, and George perks up as the last of the dust in the air settles, and—“His pants broke!” Sapnap crows. He’s running over in someone else’s suit of armor (there’s been too many deaths and resurrections to keep track of whose is where), freshly respawned and chomping at the bit. “Not feeling so tough now, are you, Dream?”

Dream turns to smirk at him, like the torn up ground and smoking crater he stands in means nothing, like the fact that the blast incinerated his mask is just an inconvenience and not proof of his mortality. 

“Wanna find out?” he says, and there’s a pearl in his hand—fuck, that must’ve rolled away from someone’s dropped items—and in an instant he’s _on_ Sapnap, tackling him to the ground, and even with only one piece of armor compared to Sapnap’s full set, he overpowers his once-friend and looks like he’s about to go for a final kind of kill.

Several things happen at once: George shoots, Dream brandishes his axe, and Sapnap raises his unadorned shield.

The arrow lands just over his heart and splinters against the netherite, but the battered armor shatters alongside it, showering Sapnap with glimmering pieces of metal, and there’s a solid _crack!_ where Dream’s axe hits the wood, and another burst of released magic, and suddenly Sapnap’s got a sword through Dream’s torso.

George steps closer, eyes wide, as Dream yanks his axe free from the shield and it breaks into a thousand tiny pieces in his hands. 

There’s another whistle, and an crossbow bolt sprouts out of Dream’s shoulder from a both eager and furious Tommy, and Dream reels back, spilling blood all over Sapnap as he removes himself from the impaling. Gold coalesces over his injuries, and by the time Dream yanks out the bolt, they’ve already stopped bleeding and started knitting back together. 

It’s slow, though, much slower than before—for all the power Dream has at his fingertips, he still has a limit.

George advances. “Dream!” he shouts, before anyone else can try to finish him off.

Tommy’s the only one, really. Everyone else is watching now, armed to the teeth but willing to stay their wrath from the defanged, declawed being that’s now eyeing up Sapnap like he’s trying to calculate how long ripping his throat out will take.

Like they’re just prey, targets instead of people. They’re targeting Dream, sure, but as a unit, and with enough awareness to not strike unnecessarily.

George slings his bow over his shoulder, and pulls out his sword instead, because he’s not stupid. He says again, “Dream,” and this time Dream narrows his eyes at him. “You lost.”

Dream _snarls,_ hurling himself at the George with reckless abandon. That wild light in his eyes has not abated in the least, despite his bleeding empty hands and his now-unarmored body. 

George lets him lunge, does not flinch when Dream claws at his armor ineffectually, and catches his hands before he can move away. His fist turns into an iron grip as Dream tries and fails to yank out of his hold. “Dream, it’s over,” he says, loudly. “Dream—Dream! You’ve lost! You don’t have anything anymore, it’s _over!”_

“Stop fighting already!” Sapnap adds, and the sentiment ripples across the amassed fighters with agreement. Everyone is sweaty and bloody and _tired_ as the adrenaline slowly starts dying down. “You’ve done enough, Dream.”

It’s like he doesn’t hear them. Dream lunges and George flinches back just in time to keep his teeth from closing on the bridge of his nose. His grip loosens, and Dream tears away only to loop back around in another attack.

With no weapon to fear, George simply braces himself for the impact and then wrestles him to the ground, keeping him there with the swordpoint tucked under his chin.

That keeps him from thrashing, for the moment.

“Dream,” George says, pleading disguised as exasperation, “you’ve already had two final deaths, come _on,_ give it up. It’s over. Let up already. You don’t care about us, we know this already, and we don’t—we’ll kill you if we must.”

Dream’s low growl transforms into a low laughter, nothing like the high-pitched wheezes of joy he used to emit. “Oh, is that true?” he says, tauntingly.

“Oh my god, just let me kill this bitch,” Tommy says, and then yelps as Tubbo stomps on his foot with a hissed, _shh!_

“No,” Sapnap tells him. He looks over to George, and there’s a mix of defeat and victory in his eyes, like he can’t decide how to feel about this, like he wanted to save Dream but knows he can’t. George drops his gaze as Sapnap continues, “If there’s anyone who gets to kill him, it’s George.”

“George couldn’t,” Dream says, and his words sting worse than any axe blow. 

“I could,” George tells him, softly.

“But you wouldn’t.”

“I would. Dream, you—I don’t know how to—you _fucked up,_ Dream, okay? We say that a lot on this server, but you really fucked up. _Everyone’s_ against you.”

Dream has the gall to roll his eyes, even in this situation, where his last life is in George’s hands. “Everyone’s stupd,” he says viciously. “I was protecting _you,_ isn’t that funny? All of this was for you.”

“No, it wasn’t,” George hisses. He stares down at Dream, who recognizes him but no longer _knows_ him, who threw his friends away the moment he outgrew them—his heart aches, and some part of him still wants that warm, honey-sweet past, but Dream won’t give it to him. Dream won’t yield. “It was for you,” he says. “Your power, _your_ word, _your_ influence—none of this was for anyone but you.” 

Dream bares his teeth in a smile. “Anything for me is for my best friends, too,” he says, and George’s hackles rise. 

“I’m not your best friend,” he says, and it _hurts,_ and his sword trembles under Dream’s chin. George stares into the eyes of a body that once belonged to his friend, and says, “Goodbye, Dream.”

Dream laughs. He laughs even as the sword strikes through his heart, even as George rips open his lungs, even as blood gurgles up his throat, even as the final death takes him.

Even then, he says: _“I win.”_

* * *

(In another world, a land without ghosts or gods, the days would pass slowly. George would find Philza in the freezing north and ask him, “How do you live with killing someone you love?”

Philza would look back, an old ache in those knowing eyes, and he would say, “With it haunting your every breath.”)

(But that is not here. Here, there are ghosts and gods. 

Here, there are dreamons.)

* * *

_“… Uh, George? Did he just respawn?”_

_“Dream?”_

* * *

His eyes are clear.

That’s the first thing George notices, because he hadn’t realized how clouded over they’d been before. 

Dream lays there on the ground, panting, completely healed, and his eyes are clear. With the goggles on, they look green—like how they’re supposed to be.

(They’ve been green, right? This whole time? They hadn’t changed color—not to red, certainly. Right?)

Dream says, “Well, this is awkward.” And then, when Sapnap levels a sword at his throat, “Yeah, because  _ that’ll _ solve everything, Sapnap. Obviously I just have four lives instead of three, through some oopsie of the world. Go ahead, fix George’s mistake.” He spreads his arms wide, clearly welcoming the fatal blow, and all George can think about is how lucky it is that they’re alone here at spawn.

Sapnap stabs forward, fury in his eyes, and Dream sneers right back up until he dies, leaving nothing behind.

And then he reappears a block away, a hand on his neck. “Your aim has gotten better,” he says, eyeing the blood dripping slowly down Sapnap’s netherite sword. “Not good enough, clearly, but—”

Sapnap jerks forward again, intent on shutting him up, but George stops him by putting a hand on his sword guard. The point still sits over Dream’s heart, but it’s not pushing through yet. “Wait,” George says, because above revenge, above all else, he wants to know why. “Dream—what was even your plan?”

“To blow up and act like I don’t know nobody,” Dream recites on reflex, and starts laughing at his own joke like the idiot he is. George and Sapnap exchange exasperated looks as Dream works several giggles out of his system. “What? What do you want me to say?”

Sapnap exhales impatiently. “I don’t know, just explain! You just—you  _ abandoned _ us for power, and then you make enemies of the whole server.”

“Including you guys,” Dream says, and crooks a smile at them, like he knows something they don’t. “Anyway, I got what I wanted. You guys… were supposed to believe that you got what you wanted, at least.”

Suddenly, that old ache in George’s chest stokes into a proper flame, and he straightens. “How did we get what we wanted?” he demands, sharp enough that Dream tenses. “We lost a friend—I had to  _ kill _ you, how is that getting what I wanted? I just wanted my friend back! Murdering you gives me nothing!”

Dream stares at him like he’s not making any sense. “You hate me,” he says defensively, like it’s something he had to repeat over and over again.

“You hate  _ me,” _ George says. The fact that they are explaining each other’s feelings to each other is probably a new low for them both, but honestly, George doesn’t care. He lifts his shoulders and his chin as he continues, “You denounced my kingship publicly, you humiliated me, you—you broke your promise, is what you did. You said I would be king and you broke it, like your word doesn’t mean anything the moment you decide on something different.”

At this, Dream’s gaze flattens into disinterest. “You still aren’t using your brain about it,” he says, words barbed. “Still being dramatic babies.”

Sapnap makes an impatient sound. “You’re always so condescending about that, Dream,” he spits. George can feel the sword trembling under his fingers. “You never gave a damn what we wanted.”

“Did George  _ want _ to die?” Dream fires back. “Of course not! Fucking  _ Technoblade _ was out for your blood, and that’s why I—”

“I can take care of myself!” George cuts him off, and that fire in his chest swells into something more like lightning, something whipquick and painful. “I have more lives than  _ both _ of you!”

Dream says, “Well,” and gestures wryly at himself. The fact that he’s died four final deaths and is still around, right, technically he’s got more lives than anybody.

“Less deaths than both of you, how about that,” George says. He tries not to sound bitter, mostly because he knows it upsets Sapnap. Not because he means to spare Dream’s feelings on the matter, assuming he has feelings of the sort at all. “And you don’t care about us, anyway.”

“What? Of course I—”

“You said as much to Tommy,” George says, ignoring Dream’s attempt to interject. “And you never stopped to ask us, you just made assumptions, so if you meant for that to have been a secret, you should’ve made it a little less obvious.”

Dream grabs the blade leveled at his chest and pushes it aside, uncaring of how it draws blood from his palm and smears previously spilled blood over his fingers. “What are you talking about,” he says. “You—”

“Back up,” Sapnap says, moving the sword between Dream and them, but Dream moves right up to it, undeterred by the sharp blade pressed up to his spawn clothes.

“You hurt us, Dream,” George says. “That’s what we’re talking about.”

A flicker of pain blinks across Dream’s expression before it vanishes, too quickly for George to get properly worked up over (why would Dream be hurting, how  _ dare _ he, why, why—George doesn’t like it and refuses to examine why he’s so invested, refuses to let misplaced trust shake his heart to pieces again). “You guys see it,” Dream says, but his voice falters halfway through. “You do.”

Sapnap shakes his head. “That’s the thing. We don’t.”

Dream snarls in frustration and jerks forward, and the sword slides between his ribs like water.

He reappears, again, but this time doesn’t hesitate to throw himself at them. Sapnap steps forward but George cuts in front, knowing Dream can’t do any real damage like this. “Stop it!” George says, as Dream’s fingers curl under the edges of his armor like he’s going to claw the life out of him unarmed. His heart thuds like it’s trying to be heard through the thick metal separating them. “This isn’t helping anyone, Dream!”

Sapnap yanks George back, snapping at Dream, “How are you not seeing what you’re doing?”

“How do  _ you _ not see?” Dream’s voice lowers, not quite wavering. “I love you guys. You know that, I’ve said it so many times—”

“You sure haven’t acted like it,” George retorts. “You keep taking liberties like you can, I don’t know, do whatever you want with us, order us around. Well, you can’t. We’re our own people too.”

Dream stares at them, lost. “I know that,” he says. “But I thought… It was for your safety, I thought for sure you’d agree.”

“And you didn’t listen when I didn’t.” 

“Suck too far up your own ass,” Sapnap affirms, and Dream flinches back at last, eyes wide. “It’s like we meant nothing to you, Dream.”

Dream makes a tiny, pained sound. “No,” he says, “no, no. You guys are everything.”

“I thought that was just the discs,” George snips at him, and Dream rocks back as though the words were a physical blow. George curses the old instinct that wants to grab him by the elbow and steady him. 

Habits are hard to break, and they’ve been friends for so much longer than they’ve been enemies.

“That’s only when I’m dealing with Tommy,” Dream says. He looks shattered, like it’s the first time he’s hearing them, even though George and Sapnap have been screaming since day one. (They have, right? They haven’t just assumed there was an understanding, the way Dream had?) “The discs only matter so long as they matter to Tommy, but  _ you _ guys matter to  _ me. _ I was trying to keep you safe”—and the shift in his tone is noticeable now, more breathy, more panicked and regretful and horrified, and George reaches out with his free hand—“I swear, I didn’t mean to make you feel like I-I actually hated you.”

The sword droops now, and George’s hand lands on Dream’s shoulder. “Dream,” he says, “Dream. Dream. Say that you hate us.”

“No,” Dream says. “I’d be lying.”

Sapnap makes an incredulous noise. “Then, letting us kill you—”

“They’d know for sure that you weren’t on my side!” Dream’s voice rises, pitching into nearly hysterical territory. He isn’t calmed by touch, or by George’s attempts to call his name again. “You’re my best friends, and if you wouldn’t let me protect you by your side, I could at least make sure they were going to treat the both of you right while I was, ah, gone. I’m okay with playing the villain! I’m okay with chasing and killing and doing what has to be done—”

“It doesn’t, though,” George says. “It doesn’t need to be done. You could’ve just come back.”

“I can’t stop Technoblade if he wants to kill someone I’m supposed to protect,” Dream says. He looks over at George. “He killed you once when you started, and he almost  _ final _ killed you that day. And he wanted was for every seat of power to be flattened to the ground, and that included kings.”

“He’s kind of retired now,” Sapnap says.

“He’s ‘kind of retired’ in full netherite,” Dream shoots back. He starts picking at his skin—a nervous tic that has both Sapnap and George reaching out to stop him on habit, damn Bad for setting that precedent. They both remember that Dream’s nails used to be crusted with blood when he got too anxious.

Dream is warm to the touch and shaking, very faintly. George pulls his hand away from his other arm and says, “You’re such an idiot.”

“I’m an idiot?” Dream says. “You’re the idiots for—for believing that—I tried so hard, I didn’t want you to know and I didn’t want you to be alone, so when I fell I wouldn’t take anyone with me—”

“The  _ stupidest _ idiot,” Sapnap interjects. And then he lurches forward, sword clattering forgotten to the ground, one arm hooked around George’s shoulders and the other around Dream’s, and when he pulls them in their heads knock together hard enough to startle a laugh out of George and a fucking  _ sob _ out of Dream, who stills in their embrace.

George cautiously tugs at his hair. It’s that same clinical cleanliness that comes from being freshly respawned, impersonal and boring, but at least it’s not soaked through with blood. “Dream?”

“I missed you,” Dream chokes out, curling a little closer. (That’s the thing about being alone: his warmth had only ever been his own, nothing but the unfamiliar call of a something in his blood that he hadn’t understood before he gave himself over to it—nobody around to pull him out of his head when everything flooded him over.) “I-I’m  _ sorry, _ I didn’t know, I thought I could protect your better like this.”

George rests his hand on Dream’s shoulder. “We’re always safer on your side than not,” George says with the fondest level of beration. 

Sapnap squeezes them both, tight enough that George can’t quite breathe properly. “I knew you were being an idiot,” he informs Dream, who makes an indignant sound that sounds more teary than anything else. “Man, you could’ve just talked to us normally instead of going ahead with it.”

“I thought you were okay with it,” Dream says. “I really did. It didn’t make sense that—George, you liked staying out of things.”

“Yeah, but I like being at your side more, not put on the side,” George says. “Don’t do that to me.  _ Listen _ to us.”

Dream says, “I will. Promise.”

“Keeping it this time, right,” Sapnap says, “because I was supposed to be king after George, if I remember correctly.”

  
“You’re  _ so _ stupid, we didn’t set that in stone!”

**Author's Note:**

> quick note of worldbuilding: god apples in this world are inherent to the divine and aren't physical apples you can eat (can be shared via "blessings", though), but dream was doing the equivalent of just chugging them when people started to get hits in. still got a limit to em, tho.
> 
> also, final deaths are the only ones that take a life off the life counter; people can still "die" by environmental means and sometimes even other players without it counting as one of their three lives. upon death you don't have to respawn right away; dream waited for most people to leave the spawn area before respawning but george and sap came back.
> 
> dream is part dreamon, which means he gets several divinity perks (infinite lives, access to god apples, world control, etc) and also means he's prone to power spirals without his notice.
> 
> in other news, these recent streams have just been agonizing, huh? gotta love it.


End file.
